For the purposes of logistics and communication, vehicle convoys often require that each vehicle know its specific order in the overall sequence. Traditionally, the order is assigned statically before the convoy embarks with the assumption that the assigned order will not change in transit. In practice however, the actual order of the vehicles may change in transit. Therefore, a better approach is to endow the convoy with the capability to configure its order dynamically so its order is automatically updated when the order of the convoy changes. A wireless ad-hoc network is a medium over which a dynamic auto-sequencing system could take place. However, there are several limitation to this type of scheme. First of all, any sequencing algorithms used by the system would have to be robust enough to handle frequent lost connections over the wireless connection. Secondly, radio strength can not be relied on as being proportional to geographical proximity due to obstacles, battery power, interference, etc. Thirdly the distance between vehicles does not always reflect the actual sequence of the vehicles (e.g. when going around corners).
For the reasons stated above and for other reasons stated below which will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon reading and understanding the present specification, there is a need in the art for an automatic sequencing that is effective and efficient that over comes the above discussed limitations.